


Recognize Myself

by FifteenDozenTimes



Category: Bandom, Young Veins
Genre: Abortion, Community: bandombigbang, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon Walker came out as transgender when he was thirteen years old, and has spent every day of his life since then building walls and perfecting his sense of denial and doing everything in his power to forget he was ever anyone but Jon. Over a decade, he's gotten pretty good at it.</p><p>Unfortunately, denial can only go so far, and when Jon ends up in a situation he can't get through with his usual coping mechanisms, he starts pushing not to forget who he was, but accept who he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely could not have done this without the cheerleading, handholding, whip-cracking, and beta-ing of mayqueen517 and verbosewordsmith. What started as a universe I poked around in to deal with my own body dysmorphia issues is only a coherent fic now because of them.
> 
> Originally posted for the 2011 Bandom Big Bang Wave One; [the fanmix by iamthelolrus and art by mouku_youbi can be found here](http://15dozentimes.livejournal.com/640.html), [and extended notes and warnings can be found here](http://15dozentimes.livejournal.com/1655.html)

The roughness of writing in the cabin did absolutely nothing to prepare Jon, to prepare any of them, for the roughness of trying to write on the road. Maybe just because the actual recording had been fine, fun, even, and that was a lot of good memory pushing the bad to the backs of their minds.

The problem is, there are a lot of problems. When Jon's feeling charitable, which happens less and less the more he has to fly back and forth for smaller and smaller injections of T, he recognizes that at least some of it lands squarely on his and Ryan's shoulders. When he's feeling uncharitable, he thinks it's fucking stupid that Brendon and Spencer are so jealous of the way he and Ryan are on the same page and getting so much done without their help. Their issues aren't his fault, aren't Ryan's.

Brendon and Jon fight, more than once, and Jon kind of gets why Ryan always picked fights with Brendon when he was stressed at the cabin. Fighting with Brendon is fucking fantastic, yelling the kind of shit they can't take back but neither will remember in a week, throwing sloppy punches that aren't going to hurt even if they land, maybe once or twice wrestling like fucking children. Jon always, always feels better afterward, and he thinks maybe, based on the way Brendon baits, takes Jon's bait, he might too.

And if that were it, if the only problem was Jon and Brendon taking out their stress on each other, that would be okay. And if the only problem were the way Jon and Ryan suddenly can't stand to write with anyone but each other, too wrapped up in this weird new-couple haze and same-wavelength ease to even consider fighting it out with Brendon or Spencer, that might be okay, too.

Spencer stops talking to Jon first, and he's so subtle about it Jon doesn't even notice until the tour's almost over, until he's talking to Ryan about something and Spencer walks in, stands there with his arms crossed until Ryan finishes whatever he was saying and joins Spencer in the front lounge, Spencer hasn't said a non-essential word to Jon in almost a month.

After that, Jon stops thinking _if we can fix it…_ and starts thinking _if we don’t…_.

"Spencer's not used to not being on Ryan's side," Brendon says, over the ending credits of another movie they'd watched in silence. He hasn't officially stopped talking to Jon, Jon hasn't officially stopped talking to him, but it's the first time in a little over a week either one has said something not meant to bait the other. "You kind of messed up their thing."

Maybe it is meant to bait; Jon's tired, though, more worn out from this tour than anything else he's ever done, and he doesn't have the energy even for the catharsis of fighting with Brendon right now. He bites back every shitty thing he could say about Spencer. "I don't mean to be so shitty," he says. It's not an apology - he’s not sure whether or not it should be - and he trusts Brendon not to take it as one. "I just have...stuff."

"Obviously," Brendon says. "Maybe if you'd tell us - it's obviously messing you up. You're - you're kind of the last person I would have expected us having this kind of trouble with."

Jon's not sure if that's supposed to be a compliment; he doesn't take it as one. "It's not something I really want to talk about."

"Ryan knows."

It's not a question. "Yeah."

Brendon sighs, harsh and frustrated. "This two-on-two shit is so fucking stupid."

"So don't make it like that. It's not my fucking fault you two have some issue with me and Ryan fucking."

"That's not - fuck it," Brendon says, rolls off the couch and to his feet in a move that's equal parts graceful and jerky. "Fuck it."

He sounds almost as tired as Jon feels. They play the last show of the tour the next night, and it's not their best, but it's not their worst. It's not enough, any more, the performing part isn't making up for the rest of it. Only Ryan bothers to say anything to him at the airport, hugs him and makes Jon promise to call when he lands. Jon watches them walk away, Ryan and BrendonSpencer, and for the first time since he joined up doesn't care he's not going with them.

Jon gets his last dose of T off-schedule, put off too long by a stupid fucking blizzard. He drinks with Tom, too much, and hangs out with Andy, thinks _maybe_ instead of _I already have a band_ when Andy talks, not for the first time and not for the last, about playing together the way they'd planned in high school. He calls Ryan, e-mails Ryan, texts Ryan, finally flies down to stay with Ryan. Ryan only ditches him three times in the entire month to hang out with Spencer, and Jon meets Brendon for drinks once. The four of them don't see each other until they can't put off rehearsing anymore.

The day before he has to get on a plane to South Africa, Jon gets his first period in almost seven years. He'd known it would happen, knew the trade he was making when he decided to go off T; he puts a hole in Ryan's wall, anyway. Ryan doesn't ask, and Jon doesn't tell him.

South Africa should be cool, should be really fun, but Jon’s tense and uncomfortable and angry about his period, about all the fucking fights, about a million things he can’t fix and can’t get over. Ryan spends most of his time holed up in the hotel with Jon, smoking up and writing stupid songs about falling in love; Jon thinks maybe he should feel guilty, but Ryan’s getting along with Brendon about as well as Jon is with Spencer, which is to say not even a little bit, and his relationship with Spencer is kind of suffering, and maybe he’d be hiding out in the hotel even without Jon to babysit. By the time they leave, Jon’s barely seen anything of Cape Town; logically, he knows it’s his own fault, but it feels better to blame Brendon and Spencer and the way they monopolized Zack.

When they’d thought they’d be making more touring plans, or getting some writing done, or anything other than alternating between fighting and not speaking, Jon had planned to crash with Ryan so they could get stuff done without the distance being an issue. There’s no reason to change that just because there isn’t gonna be any working, which means Ryan can say it to Jon’s face when he comes back from lunch with Spencer.

“It’s over,” he says. “We’ll have shit to sign, and stuff, but it’s over.”

Brendon and Spencer retain a whole lot of rights Jon thinks maybe they should fight about, but he’s so fucking sick of fighting, and if Ryan’s not going to complain Jon’s not willing to keep this fight going on his own.

“They probably won’t keep the name,” Ryan says, later, when they’re so high Jon can barely feel his fingers and toes. “Spencer thinks they’ll do something else, I dunno.”

Ryan is hopelessly fucking naive, but Jon’s too tired and too ready to be done with this chapter to argue with him.

*

For the first time since he decided growing it was a fair trade for the eyeliner, Jon shaves his beard off the day before they start recording with Andy and the two guys Ryan found through Z and Alex; Ryan spends so much time the next day finding ways to comment on Jon’s masculinity Andy - whose weirdness tolerance is relatively high - asks Jon, more than once, how high Ryan is. Jon should be annoyed, maybe, that Ryan’s drawing this weird level of attention to how manly Jon is, because the more attention people pay the more likely it is they’ll start coming up with reasons he isn’t, but he can’t really find it in himself to care.

When Jon starts letting his hair grow shaggy over his ears, longer than he’s had it since he was seven years old, before he knew he wasn’t Anne but after he knew he didn’t want any part of being “girly”, Ryan just keeps smiling at him, and Jon’s not sure if he’s imagining pride there because he likes the idea of Ryan understanding, or if maybe reality is actually cooperating with him for once. Either way, it’s kind of awesome.

Someday, Jon might regret a lot of shit. He’ll regret not caring more about the stupid contracts, for never thinking Ryan might have stopped fighting for his own shit because he needed someone else to do it for him. He’ll regret some of the shit he said, or at least the way he said it, the way he got too angry and too mean to compensate for fucking up when they left Panic.

The thing is, though, Jon spends the summer in a van with Ryan and three other dudes he doesn’t fight with once, crammed into backseats and three-in-a-Queen when they’re too cheap to pay for more than one hotel room, lazily arguing about how much sex is acceptable in the van, and should that amount be different for Jon and Ryan because they paid for the van, goddammit, calling Tom to trade the kind of stories only people who went from buses to vans and kind of like the vans better understand, playing songs he wrote and got to record before too many chefs got their hands in the soup, songs it’s okay for him to feel possessive about guilt-free.

It might make him a shitty friend, shitty person, but Jon isn’t sure he can regret anything that got him to a fucking rooftop against a blazing sunset, then a sky full of stars, hand big on Ryan’s slim waist while they put off getting on the elevator and going back to the kind of reality where he’s in Chicago and Ryan’s in Los Angeles for the few months before Jon goes for another visit.


	2. Chapter 2

"No, it's not - I don't _get_ a lot of what you do, but I get your logic, and I get why I don't get it. But, I mean this I really, really don't get. You've just, like, decided to be miserable the rest of your life?"

"I'm not miserable," Jon says, shifts the blanket up over his shoulder. He can't have this conversation with his scars hanging out, however faint they might be now, however much Ryan insists he can’t even see them.

"You're not comfortable, though. You put more energy into pretending your body's the way you want it to be - "

"Fuck you." This conversation is over, absolutely fucking over. Jon rolls over and hopes Ryan won't keep talking if he's stuck talking to Jon's blanket-covered back.

"That's not - it's what you do, though. Like. You know what your body's actually like. I know what your body's actually like. Or, like, I can guess, since you won't let me see. And you know you're not gonna make any more changes to it. So wouldn't it make you a fuck of a lot happier to, like, be okay with what you have? It'd at least be easier for you."

"That's all very nice," Jon says, "except you're only saying it because you're sick of my underwear getting in the way."

"Actually, that part's kind of hot? But, yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't bother me we've been dating for, like, ever, and I don't get to see you naked."

"It's not about you."

"I know. But...kind of? Like - "

"Ryan." Jon sits up, throwing the blanket aside with a little more force than it really needs. "I let you fuck me. Even if it’s not - it’s just anal, it’s still fucking huge for me, you ungrateful dick. So if you could maybe not make me regret it by asking for more, like I knew you would the minute I gave in on one thing, that would be _fucking awesome_."

"I'm not - if I wanted to be a dick about it, dude, there's nothing stopping me from pulling your underwear down an extra inch when I fuck you. It's not, like, 'I want to see you naked', not entirely, it's more like - you're going to spend the entire rest of your life hiding?"

"Yes," Jon says; it's not that simple, but he's tired of explaining shit. "Also, the rest of my life sleeping on the couch. Goodnight, asshole."

*

Ryan's couch is actually pretty comfortable, or at least it is when Ryan takes a fucking hint and doesn't climb on while Jon's sleeping so he wakes up stiff and too sweaty and still kind of cranky.

"The thing is," Ryan says, "your shit would be hard to navigate even for someone who's good at dealing with people's shit. Can I at least get a little credit for fucking up less than I used to?"

"No," Jon mumbles into the couch cushion, but when he shifts to face Ryan, he doesn't look as much like he just wants Jon to admit he's right to end the argument as like he actually doesn't want Jon mad at him. Someday, Jon will be less easy. "Maybe."

"Cool. And, like, I really won't - you can run around in, like, fifty layers if that's what you want, I just - stuff."

"You just stuff," Jon repeats, because he's way too tired to translate Ryan-speak.

"Um. Yeah. Like - "

"Okay," Jon says to cut him off, and burrows his face into Ryan's chest a little so he can go back to sleep.

*

Jon spends a little over half an hour in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom, taking his harness off, putting it back on, taking it back off again. Ryan - Ryan might be on to something, maybe, a little, like maybe the way part of Jon's shower ritual is to switch from his everyday harness to his waterproof one so he doesn't even have to go the length of the shower without that weight between his legs, maybe the way Ryan drapes fabric over this mirror so Jon won't have to see himself while he makes the switch, maybe that's not really sustainable behavior for the rest of his life. Or maybe it could be, but shouldn't.

It's not as bad as Jon was afraid of, at least; he half-expected the sight of himself as he really is, rather than the way his harness lets him be, would make him sick. Which, okay, maybe - maybe that's a good sign he's not doing the right thing for himself.

But it's not - he can let his eyes travel down past the smooth planes of his chest to the thatch of hair and missing flesh between his legs, and he feels...he hates it, God he hates it, but it's nowhere near as violent a hate as it used to be. He times himself, five minutes without the harness, ten minutes with; the third time he takes off the harness, he doesn’t have to stop himself from reaching for it before his watch beeps that his five minutes are up.

*

One of the best things about living with Ryan is no matter how fucked-up Jon's schedule gets, Ryan's is always worse, which means Jon generally gets at least an hour, usually more, in the morning (or early afternoon, whatever) to himself. And, yeah, in his apartment in Chicago he could have a lot more than that, but it's harder to appreciate when it's constant.

The house smells like coffee and weed, at least from the kitchen through the living room; the bedroom smells like old clothes because it's well past time to do laundry, and the bathroom smells like litter. Dylan's sprinting up and down the hall fighting with something, most likely an invisible something, which means Ryan's gonna come stumbling in any minute, not quite awake even though he went to bed a little over twelve hours ago.

"Are you clipping coupons?" Ryan asks from the doorway, right on schedule.

"And making a shopping list," Jon says. "This time, we're gonna remember to get more than chips and pop-tarts."

Ryan leans in and kisses Jon's cheek before fumbling his way to the coffee pot. "Such a good little housew - uh."

Jon freezes halfway through cutting out a buy one, get one cereal deal, and bites back the profanity building up in his throat. _Ryan's trying_ , his brain says, the good part, the part that gets that Ryan's been fucking up less and less, to the point sometimes Jon forgets he's someone who _does_ fuck up. _Ryan's trying_.

When Jon looks over his shoulder, Ryan's standing completely still, coffee pot tipped just slightly over the last clean mug. His eyes are huge, and he is definitely bracing himself.

"It's not - it's fine."

"I call Spencer a housewife all the time," Ryan says. Jon believes it, Hell Jon's probably heard it before. Ryan - for all Ryan loves words, he loves them best when he can pick and choose which part of their meanings to keep, and usually the "this word means 'girl'" meanings are the ones that get dropped first.

"It's fine," Jon says, and he means it. "Drink your coffee, we have shit to do today."

It must show in his voice, or his face, that he's not actually mad; Ryan was bracing himself so hard it’s actually visible when he stops. "Put chips and pop-tarts on the list," he says, before he turns back to fix his coffee. "We don't want to forget those."

*

“This isn’t for you,” Jon says; Ryan doesn’t ask. The silence gives him an easy excuse to take a few extra seconds to steel himself, like maybe he’s just waiting for a question before he steps out of the bathroom.

Ryan does an actual double-take, up to Jon, back to his book, back up to Jon with his eyes almost comically wide. Jon clenches and unclenches his fist, bites back the desire to turn around and come back out with his dick secure in his boxers. But there’s nothing in Ryan’s eyes even close to the scrutiny Jon subjected himself to in the mirror for the last couple weeks; Jon can do this.

To his credit, Ryan’s eyes drift downwards once, and then stay on his face. “You - wow.”

“Shut up,” Jon says, and crosses the room so he can climb into bed.

“Uh, you - are we - “

“Sleeping,” Jon says. “Just sleeping.”

“No, right, totally. I can sleep, yeah.” Ryan shuts his book without marking his place, and knocks the clock off the bedside table when he flails to turn off his lamp. “Do we - can I touch you?”

“Not there,” Jon says, and waits for Ryan to nod before he turns his back so Ryan can spoon against him. Ryan wriggles around a whole lot before he pulls the blanket up to slide under, and when he presses against Jon’s back it’s skin-to-skin everywhere. Which is - it’s actually nice enough that for the first time, Jon thinks maybe pushing himself like this could be worth it.

Ryan’s arm hovers near Jon’s waist for a second too long; Jon tangles his fingers with Ryan’s and pulls his arm down, high enough on Jon’s chest he’ll be able to sleep without worrying about it.

*

The sun is the best kind of too hot on Jon's skin, keeping him comfortably roasted. His legs are already getting sore from playing fetch with Marley for just a little too long, an ache he'll be feeling all day tomorrow if he keeps going. Jon fucking loves the beach; aside from the sand, even the uncomfortable parts aren't really bad.

"Which is why you need to move here for good," Ryan says, when Jon flops down on the blanket with a loud declaration of his love. Ryan's face is all shadow under the brim of his ridiculous sun hat, hidden behind sunglasses that take up at least three-quarters of his face. He's got about as much skin showing as a Victorian lady, because he has something against actually using sunscreen, and Jon should want to make fun of him for it but he just smiles, dopey and wide, and ducks under Ryan's hat for a quick kiss.

"Maybe," Jon says, and kisses him again before pushing himself back up for more fetch.

Jon plays with Marley for another half hour before his legs decide he is absolutely done for the day; when he gets back to the blanket, Ryan's rolled his pant lets up and discarded his shirt, pale skin already pinking in the sun as he naps. Jon sighs and takes a minute to weigh the way Ryan will whine if he wakes him up against the way Ryan will whine if he gets any more sunburned. It's a harder decision than it would be with a normal person, but he's kind of gotten used to that. You have to, with Ryan.

*

"I'm dying," Ryan says, while Jon rubs aloe over his beet-red back with the lightest possible touch.

"You are not."

"You don't know that. You're not a doctor."

"I'm also not an idiot."

"I know my body, and I know what it feels like when it's dying."

Jon sits back on his knees, rests his weight on Ryan's thighs. "How would you possibly know that? You've never died before."

"Less talking," Ryan says, "more back rubs."

"I should just let you suffer," Jon says, but he keeps rubbing aloe in to Ryan's back, his legs, his chest, until Ryan's practically boneless, melting into the bed.

*

"Clover's trying to eat me. Again."

"No," Jon says, even before he tilts his head back to see that she's just licking at Ryan's pant leg. "If she were trying to eat you, she would have tenderized you first, and you haven't been whining so I know she wasn't."

"You'd whine too," Ryan says.

"Maybe. But she loves me too much to tenderize me, don't you baby?"

Ryan passes the joint down, and runs his fingers through Jon's hair instead of lifting his hand all the way back up. Ryan is the best.

"Do they answer you?"

"No. I think if I thought they talked back, I'd be crazy."

"I'm pretty sure it's crazier to talk to things that don't answer back."

"Says the guy who had a full conversation with the microwave the other day."

Ryan tugs on Jon's hair a little, which feels pretty awesome. "If it would respond to the buttons, I wouldn't have to tell it what I want it to do."

That almost makes sense, at least enough that it's not worth it to keep the subject going. Besides, if he gets Ryan worked up enough, he'll stop petting Jon so he can talk with his hands, and that would _suck_.

They pass the joint back in forth in silence for...a while, who knows. Long enough for Clover to get tired of Ryan's pants and hop off the couch to curl up in Jon's lap.

"Compared to your cats," Ryan says, still combing his fingers through Jon's hair, "where do I fall?"

"Uh," Jon says, "third."

"Above Marley?" Ryan sounds genuinely surprised. Jon's not sure if he should feel bad, if maybe Ryan not expecting Jon to like him as much as Jon’s pets is a bad thing, but right now it's just kind of funny.

"No, you said cats. You're third on the list of cats. And second on the list of dogs. And fourth overall."

"Oh," Ryan says; when Jon tilts his head back, Ryan's smiling. "Cool."

*

> If you're dating a fully-transitioned transman, who looks like a normal guy -- and nearly all of us pass really well after testosterone and mastectomies -- and you get to the taking-off-your-clothes part with him, it's real important not to choke up when finally faced with his genitalia. Some people, unfortunately, do the deer-in-headlights thing when the dissonance of this male body without the "expected" dangling male genitals hits them. The minds of some biomen, especially, may instinctively think "castration!" and they may even flinch. If you're even slightly afraid that you may react this way, I suggest that you buy Loren Cameron's book "Body Alchemy" and study the photos until you're more familiar with the anatomical dissonance of a transman's body.[1](http://www.otherbear.com/handson.html)

There’s another tab open, the Amazon page for the recommended book. Jon’s having trouble breathing, suddenly, can’t get enough air in around his heart now that it’s lodged securely in his throat. In a good way, fuck, in the best way, just - maybe Jon’s an idiot, maybe he’s an asshole, but somehow in the process of accepting that Ryan didn’t get this stuff and was going to slip up occasionally, it hadn’t ever occurred to him that Ryan might be putting extra effort into _not_ fucking up.

Jon just blinks at the page, frozen a little bit from the rush of - rush of everything, fuck, guilt over underestimating Ryan, no small amount of anger at himself for being a big enough dick to just not consider that Ryan gave enough of a shit to try, and this massive fucking swell of affection he's a little surprised doesn't propel him right off the bed and into the shower to kiss Ryan fucking senseless.

The shower stops and Jon shakes himself a little, logs into Twitter and types some arbitrary phrase since he can't remember what the fuck he'd been planning to tweet in the first place. The bathroom door opens with a cloud of steam and cologne, because Ryan is exactly the kind of asshole who puts cologne on just to sleep in, just as Jon's shutting the computer.

"If I had a bigger water heater," Ryan says, as he sheds his towel and climbs into bed, "I'd stay in there forever."

"I take it that means there's no hot water for me."

"No," Ryan says. "Which is too bad, because you kind of stink."

That's normally Jon's cue to fight back, start a stupid war of stupid insults until one of them - usually Jon - can't keep a straight face anymore. Instead he rolls onto his side, kisses Ryan deep and thorough and long.

Ryan blinks a little dazedly at him when he pulls back, smiling wide and genuinely pleased. "Okay. I forgive you for smelling so bad."

Jon just rolls his eyes and tucks himself against Ryan's side so he can talk to Ryan's chest, not have to make eye contact. "I think, maybe," he says, "we could try...stuff." He winces, a little, because what the fuck, but as much as he suddenly wants this, the words don't want to come out.

"Stuff," Ryan says, agreeable even though he couldn't possibly know what Jon's talking about. "Okay."

"Like, the kind of stuff where - there. Stuff _there_."

"Um," Ryan says, and rests a hand on Jon's hip, taps his middle finger a couple times. “ _There_ , there?"

"You could fuck me," Jon says, in a rush. "I would - that would be okay. That would be good, even, I think."

Ryan's finger freezes mid-tap, and Jon is acutely aware of how close it is to that last part of him he hasn't let Ryan have. He bites his lip and flexes his hand a little on the urge to squirm away, but Ryan - Ryan who is not an idiot, Ryan who is trying, Ryan who is so much better than Jon had ever expected to have even when he's not that good - shifts his hand up to Jon's ribs anyway.

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I'm gonna get."

"Because we don't have to - I don't need - "

"I know," Jon says, and manages to push himself up a little, manages to look Ryan in the eye without flinching away. "But you can."

"Okay. I - okay. Wow. Okay. Like, were you thinking, like, now, because I don't think I can - "

"Not tonight," Jon says.

"Right, no, totally. Whenever you're ready."

Jon kisses Ryan again before he shifts away, fumbling with his boxers and the harness he's been taking on and off for so long it's not even a little tricky to unbuckle it under the blankets without looking. He's gotten used to it already, to falling asleep and waking up skin against skin, touching everywhere.

"I won't be a dick about it," Ryan says in Jon's ear when he presses against Jon's back. "I promise."

"I know," Jon says. "I trust you."

*

Maybe. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe he’s not ready, maybe -

“We don’t have to do this,” Ryan says, rolling off Jon to lie on his side next to him.

“I want to.”

Ryan arches his eyebrows. “Absolutely nothing about you right now says ‘I want this’, dude.”

“My mouth.”

Ryan quirks his lips a little at that, an almost-smile. “I just - if you don’t want - “

“I need this,” Jon says. “I need to - I need to be able to do this.”

“I’m not one hundred per cent on board,” Ryan says. “I just want that on the record so later when you’re mad and try to fight with me, I can bring that up.”

“I won’t fight with you. And if _you_ don’t want it, just say so.”

“I want it,” Ryan says, hasty. “Shit, do I want it. But I’m not convinced you do.”

Jon sighs, makes a concentrated effort to relax. “Being nervous doesn’t mean I don’t want it.”

“Okay, just - can I - how do I make it easier for you?”

“Um. We need to do it so you can’t see. Like. Spooning, maybe? Or I’m gonna be worried about you looking. And it can’t - just like anal, it has to be exactly the same.”

“I can do that, yeah. Like, lube, and stretching?”

“Yeah, that - yeah.”

Ryan leans in and kisses Jon. “What about - “

“Just like anal.”

“Okay, but - “

“Ryan, fuck, it’s not that fucking hard. Would you do it to fuck me in the ass? If not, don’t do it now.”

Ryan frowns a little, and Jon doesn’t get what the fuck his problem is.

“I - okay, but - okay. Okay.”

Jon smiles in what he hopes is a more reassuring than anxious way, and rolls over on his side.

*

Ryan's breath is hot against the back of Jon's head, puffing out slower and slower until he's breathing normally. Jon squirms a little, hoping he'll get the hint and pull out, but he just tightens his hand on Jon's dick, gives it a slow jerk that rocks the base against Jon's clit the way Jon loves when he's not too weirded out and uncomfortable to enjoy it.

"Did you - " Ryan starts, but Jon cuts him off.

"I need a shower," Jon says, and Ryan doesn't push it, just pulls out and lets go so he can roll away.

Jon tugs the waterproof harness out of its resting place behind the clean towels, switches with his back to the mirror because he's let Ryan keep it uncovered. It makes it a little harder to wash up where he needs to, but that's not really as big a concern right now as it maybe should be.

They've been sleeping together naked for about a month now, but Ryan doesn't say a word when Jon steps out of the bathroom in the boxer briefs that are tight enough to hold his dick in place so he can sleep without a harness. He doesn't say anything when Jon tucks himself against Ryan's side, even though if Ryan sleeps on his back he'll complain about a sore neck for at least a day after. He does say something when Jon says, quiet in the dark room, "we're not doing that again."

"Okay," is what he says. "That's fine."

And he says something else, after his breathing’s evened out enough Jon thinks he’s asleep, when Jon's too tired to hear him right. It’s either "I'm sorry" or "I love you"; right now, they're probably kind of the same thing.

*

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Jon takes a drag of his cigarette and doesn’t look away from the sunset. He blows the smoke out as slowly as he can, stalling. He’s been avoiding Ryan all day, not the easiest to do in a small house when neither of them ever go anywhere. It’s not fair to Ryan, and part of knowing that Ryan’s trying should be Jon trying harder himself; as easy it is to pretend any problems they have are just because Ryan doesn’t understand everything there is to understand about Jon, it’s bullshit.

“Not really,” Jon says, but he pats the lawn chair next to him in invitation. Ryan takes it, and Jon offers up the last few drags of the cigarette. The neighborhood’s as quiet as it ever gets, which isn’t exactly quiet at all, just enough noise to make Jon and Ryan’s own silence more noticeable.

“Was it something I did?” Ryan asks, finally.

“No, shit, no. It was - it was just too much. Too big a step.”

“You should have asked me to stop.”

“I thought it might - I thought I’d get over it? Like if I kept going there’d be a breaking point, or something.”

“What was it - “ Ryan pauses, and sighs, leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I know you don’t like talking about this shit. But I think this might be the time for me to, like, make you?”

Jon bites his lip, nods a little even though Ryan’s not looking at him. “Maybe.”

“Okay. So, uh. What was the problem?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Like, I just. I couldn’t get out of my head enough.”

“We could try with you high, or something.”

“Maybe.”

“Or, like, smaller stuff. I could go down on you.”

The idea of Ryan getting that close - Jon picked fucking for a reason, because they could do it without him worrying about Ryan seeing anything. “No.”

“Okay.”

“I just - it’s. I was making some progress. And I feel like that ruined it.”

Ryan sits back then, looks over at Jon. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t - it’s not you. You’re great, Ryan, you’re - that was me. I fucked up.”

A breeze kicks up, blows Ryan’s hair across his frown. Jon wants to reach out and brush it off, but he feels awkward in his own skin, like if he moves he’s going to burst right out of it.

“I don’t really know what to do for you, sometimes.”

“I know,” Jon says. “That’s not your fault. You’re - seriously, you’re great. I’m just. I’m not easy.”

“Easy’s boring,” Ryan says; he’s wearing sunglasses so Jon can’t tell if his eyes match the smile in his voice, but he chooses to believe they do. Ryan’s earned himself the benefit of the doubt.

*

Jon went through a period, after he told his parents who he was but before that got him anywhere, where he spent a lot of time holed up in his room watching horrible romantic comedies. The thing about those is they set up these worlds where men and women were so incredibly different there couldn't possibly be any confusion - people who acted like men were men, end of story.

It's possible he picked up more from that period than he thought, considering the way Z keeps calling him Chicago's answer to Hugh Grant.

"It's cute, though," she says. "Ryan needs someone who treats him like a delicate princess."

Jon's pretty sure he's not _that_ bad, but instead of defending him, Ryan just says, "Duh."

"I need another beer. You want anything?"

"Yes," Ryan says, "I want Z to stop being so jealous that I get to be a princess."

"Fat chance, Ross," Z says.

"Okay. I'll settle for a refill, then." Ryan's glass is still half-full, but the ice is melting so chances are good he'll just dismiss the rest of it as too watery and waste four dollars of an eight dollar gin and tonic. Jon rolls his eyes and scoots out of the booth, winces a little - must've slept on his back wrong - and leans over to kiss Ryan before he walks away so Z will have plenty to tease him about while Jon's getting drinks. Not that she ever has trouble coming up with something on her own.

The wait at the bar is ridiculous, dudebro bartender and too many girls using their low-cut tops and his dudebro-ness against him for Jon to get any attention; Z and Ryan are arguing about something French-sounding when Jon finally gets back, leaning over the table all seriousness, slipping in and out of French and English. That's kind of hot, actually.

They stop when Jon slides back into his seat and can't hold back the wince when his back twinges again.

"Your back again?" Ryan asks, rests his hand just above Jon's waistband.

"Slept on it wrong, I think."

Ryan frowns. "That's like the third time this week."

Fifth. "Maybe we need a new mattress."

"Maybe," Ryan says, and lets Z draw him back in to the argument. He doesn't take his hand off Jon's back.

*

The computer is just sitting there looking inviting; Jon isn't, at all, the kind of person who runs to the internet for every little medical worry, but it kind of feels like his body is fighting with him and he'd like to figure out why. There's the back thing, and the way he'd almost come just from Ryan mouthing at his nipples last night, his lips sending these hot shocks of almost-pain that kind of felt the way women in porn pretend to feel when their nipples get played with. And today, just now, when Jon was doing his get-comfortable-with-my-body thing in the mirror, they kind of looked darker. Not red, or bruised, or anything that would explain the sudden sensitivity, but definitely a few shades darker.

He can chalk up the headaches he's been waking up with to all the drinking he and Ryan have been doing, too many nights at bars with Z or Greenwald or both, but even if he ignores those, he's a little worried.

"Are you taking another fucking nap?" Ryan yells from the living room, and oh yeah, there's that, the way Jon's lost his ability to stay awake for a full day. He adds _lethargic_ to the list of symptoms in the search box, and...yeah, no, that can't be it.

"No," Jon answers, and then asks as an afterthought, "Hey, do you remember when we fought about the kitchen?"

Jon's periods usually come with a few days of this fucking rage he prefers a little to the shame he used to have, but he's an asshole who hasn't learned to not take his shit out on everyone else, and they've fought every month for the past - for a while. It sucks, but right now the idea that he has a big memorable fight to remember the timing of all his fucking periods by is kind of a good one.

"Um, I don't know, a month and a half? Two months? What day is it now, 'cause it was, like, the first week of October."

Jon doesn't look at the calendar; he doesn't know the date, but he's got a good enough idea. Still. It's - it's a whole lot of coincience, and his back just hurts from the mattress, and his head just hurts from too much drinking, and he's just paranoid about his nipples because he’s been weird about them since the day he decided not to have anything done to them during his top surgery. There's a totally logical explanation for all of it.

*

"Your box of decorations is too heavy for me to lift," Ryan says, when Jon starts filling their cart with ornaments.

"Lots of things are too heavy for you to lift. And those are just the essentials."

"I don't think you really grasp what 'essentials' means."

Jon rolls his eyes and throws in a few packs of tinsel. Ryan knew what he was getting into when he told Jon yes, he wanted Jon to stay for Christmas and yes, he'd let Jon decorate to his liking.

Obviously he was lying, since he doesn't seem too excited by the giant inflatable snowman on display.

"No," he says. "I'm putting my foot down."

He actually puts his foot down, because he's Ryan and he's ridiculous. Jon doesn't press the inflatable snowman issue. Even though it would look exactly the right kind of tacky in the backyard.

"Wanna go get the car? I'll check out."

"Okay, but if you sneak anything inflatable in there, I'm kicking you out."

"And you'd let me back in the first time you forgot to pay a bill," Jon says to Ryan's retreating back; Ryan flips him off just before he turns the corner to leave through the candy aisle.

Jon starts towards the checkout, takes the long way that brings him by the pharmacy. He starts to turn down an aisle, stops, starts again, stops one more time. He's just - it doesn't mean anything. It's not a girl thing to buy, guys probably pick them up for their girlfriends all the time. Guys who have girlfriends, not guys who have boyfriends, because they're _for girls_.

But. He'll never stop worrying until he's ruled it out, and he's had trouble sleeping since he tried to have Google diagnose his shit. Jon grits his teeth, turns down the aisle, and grabs a two-pack of pregnancy tests.

*

Ryan's at the movies with Spencer, so Jon tries to take advantage of the time to decorate without any distractions. There's something else he can only do when he doesn't have to worry about Ryan seeing, though, and knowing there's a pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom counter is a way bigger distraction than Ryan breaking ornaments.

Jon manages to get the lights on the tree before he can't wait any more; the word PREGNANT on the little screen makes him wish he hadn't hurried. It - there's a reason he bought two, this one probably glitched, he drank too much water, not enough water, _something_.

The tree is blinking invitingly at him after he sets the second test up; he's so afraid to check it he ends up getting the entire thing decorated, plus the fake snow stuck on the windowsills.

PREGNANT, the second test says, and Jon can't - there are a billion things in his head, but the only thing he can process is _I have to get the fuck out of here_. Fuck. _Fuck_.

Packing hardly takes any time at all, considering how much of his shit he has spread all over the house. He's starting to think he can get out before Ryan gets back, not have to deal with him, when Clover decides the last thing she wants is to get in her carrier. Jon has her cornered under the bed when the front door opens and closes.

"You were right," Ryan calls, "it sucked. Next time I'm picking. You should come next time, he was asking about you."

Ryan's voice is getting closer, voice and footsteps and Clover keeps backing away and Jon can't fucking handle this right now.

"Like, it would be great for me if you two would - Uh," Ryan says, and Jon drops his head a little. Fuck. "Why are you - I thought you were here until New Year’s."

"Fuck you."

Jon can almost _hear_ Ryan blinking in confusion behind his back. "Because I got your schedule wrong?"

Jon focuses on coaxing Clover into her cat carrier, because just Ryan's stupid voice is making him want to punch things, and he doesn't want to hurt his hand on Ryan's stupid fucking wall or his stupid fucking face. Clover's being a little bitch, though, hiding just out of reach under the bed; still, Jon has more patience for cat bullshit than people bullshit.

"I'm sure you told me -“

"Ryan," Jon half-growls, slamming his hand against the floor hard enough Clover goes sprinting out of the room, and goddammit now Ryan's made Jon's cat mad at him. Asshole. "Shut up."

"No. You can at least tell me - "

"How fucking stupid do you have to be," Jon says, because fine, fuck, if Ryan wants to do this, they'll do this, "to not know to use a _fucking condom_?"

Ryan blinks his stupid I'm-lost blink a few times, then his eyes go comically wide. Well. It's comical when Jon's about one percent as upset as he is now. Right now it just makes Ryan look intolerably stupid.

"I - are you - "

"It's not fucking rocket science. It rolls right the fuck on."

"You - I didn't - you said I couldn't do anything different than usual."

" _Within reason_ ," Jon yells, too loud, loud enough to drown out the _he has a point_ traitorously popping up in the back of his mind. Ryan doesn't get to have a fucking point right now, Jon's too mad for that.

"It wasn't - I was trying to - "

"I don't care. I can't - I need to go home, because I can't deal with your stupid fucking face right now."

"Jon," Ryan starts, but he just opens and closes his mouth a few more times without finishing. Jon gives him a minute, in case it turns out there actually are words that will make this better, in case it turns out Ryan can find those words. He doesn't, though, doesn't find _any_ words, and Jon just walks away to give wrangling Clover another try.

*

Jon texts Andy with enough details Andy won't ask.

(Andy wouldn’t ask, anyway, Andy’s better at rolling with things than maybe anyone Jon knows. But Tom keeps telling Jon he’s fucking weird about feeling like he owes people things, and maybe he’s got a point, because Jon’s not sure he can pretend Andy being the only one to get a text has to do with anything other than Andy being the very first person, other than Tom, to call Jon “dude”, to make him stop worry about passing for five seconds.)

Ryan gets a text, too, but it's one word to Andy's twenty. Jon waits for Andy's _that's rough, dude, do what you gotta_ but not Ryan's answer before he tweets, and then he shuts his phone off and locks himself in his room with his guitar and a notebook. When he turns his phone back on, it's three in the morning and he has twenty missed calls from the Nicks. They gave up around two; maybe they got hold of someone else. Maybe Andy did the right thing, the thing Jon couldn't handle doing, maybe he called them. Maybe they talked to Ryan. Ryan, who texted just once, half an hour ago, _can I call you?_

 _No_ , Jon sends back, but after he's in bed, Marley warming his feet and Dylan stretched out along his back, he adds _at least not tonight_.

*

Jon's in Chicago a week before he calls his parents to let them know that yeah, he'd like to do Christmas with them after all.

"I thought Ryan won holiday custody this year."

"It wasn't a contest, Dad," Jon says. "And he forfeited."

"Okay," his dad says; the amount of sympathy packed into that one syllable makes Jon feel raw, sliced open. "We'll expect you on Christmas Eve to help wrap for the kids, then."

"It's a date."

Jon finally calls Ryan back later that night, and tells himself it has nothing to do with how unprepared he is for two days at home with the pity he'll get if he has to say "Ryan and I aren't even talking".

 

*

"So, I saw this dog today," Ryan says, when Jon picks up the phone.

"How exciting for you."

"No, but, it was wearing flip-flops."

"And how high were you at the time?" Ryan doesn't answer; he's probably gesturing, he tends to forget that whoever he's talking to can't see him. "Words, Ryan. It's a phone, use your words."

"Not very," Ryan says. "I'm not actually stupid enough to drive to the beach when I'm so fucked up I'm hallucinating, what the fuck."

"You might have hallucinated that you were okay to drive," Jon says.

"Maybe I hallucinated the beach and I was in my bathroom. No, but, like, not on his feet - "

"What?"

"The flip-flops. His owner had them hanging off his collar so she didn't have to carry them."

"That's...actually a really good idea," Jon says, sits up enough so he can see Marley over in the corner chewing on a bone. He casts a considering look at the sandals discarded in the corner, and frowns a little. Marley's not tall enough, damn.

"It's like all your favorite things in one. I thought I got a picture but I guess I hit cancel instead of save? Or my phone ate it. Or something."

"I think my imagination can handle it."

"Cool," Ryan says. "Next time you come down, we can make Marley your flip-flop bitch."

Jon kind of wants to be annoyed, start another stupid fight over Ryan just assuming he'll be visiting again. They haven't talked, really, haven't gotten past stupid stories and, like, small talk about the weather yet, and Jon doesn't really know if he likes Ryan just assuming that when they do talk, it'll end in Jon crawling back. Or maybe this is Ryan's way of crawling back.

Whatever. He shoves it down, concentrates on Ryan's brain going to the same place his own did. Being on the same page as Ryan is better than fighting with him, anyway.

"He's too short, I think."

"We'll have to make a friend with little feet, then," Ryan says. "Or get a taller dog."

Jon likes the idea of them getting a pet together so much he forgets he's supposed to be mad about Ryan making assumptions.

*

"I'm shopping," Jon says, "but I can probably handle talking and driving a cart. I'm talented like that."

"You are," Ryan agrees. "Fun shopping, or grocery shopping?"

"Grocery shopping is fun. At least, eating is fun, and I need to get groceries to eat."

"You're kind of a weird dude."

"Yes. Out of the two of us, I'm the weird one. You're the pot, and I'm, like, a pink kettle, and I'm the blackest."

"You just called yourself a pink kettle," Ryan says. "I rest my case."

Jon can't actually argue with that. He chooses to believe it's because of how absurd it is, not because Ryan's right; the idea that he might actually be weirder than Ryan isn't something he can really wrap his head around.

"Do you have a list?" Ryan asks, when Jon's gone a minute or so without saying anything. "And your grandmotherly coupon book?"

"It's plain blue, how the fuck is it grandmotherly?"

"It's a coupon book."

Okay, point. "I've saved like twenty bucks already, dude."

"You should use it to buy me stuff," Ryan says. "I'm out of food again."

"I taught you how to shop, Ross." Jon finishes up in the frozen aisle, and is about to hang up so he won't be that douchebag on the phone while he checks out when he remembers how much he's been craving salty shit lately. One more trip down the chip aisle would probably be a good idea.

"No, you taught me how to sit there while you made a list. And then walk behind you while you followed the list. You, like, gave me a fish."

"What?"

"Give a man a fish, teach him to fish, y'know. Eat for a day, eat for a lifetime."

"You're ridiculous, and I need to hang up so I can check out."

"This is why you need to come back," Ryan says. "So I don't starve."

Jon sighs. "Ryan - "

"No, I know, I wasn't - whenever. I just meant, like, eventually."

"Eventually."

"The soon kind of eventually."

"Maybe," Jon says. "We'll see. And I'll e-mail you a shopping list you can use as a starting point."

"You're the _best_ ," Ryan says, earnestly.

"And you're ridiculous," Jon says. "Goodbye."

When he gets home, he spends maybe twice as long writing a list for Ryan as he did for himself.

*

"No, I can talk, it's just Brendon and Spencer."

It kind of sounds like more than them, but compared to the crickets chirping in Jon's apartment it makes sense three people - especially if one of those people is Brendon - would sound like a party. Jon thinks, maybe, he hears a voice he doesn't recognize, but if it's not a video game character, it's probably Dallon, and Ryan has weird ideas about being a traitor, or something. Weird ideas that maybe Jon contributed to; Ryan's on his best behavior, right now, and it's kind of uncomfortable to stumble on the weird fucked-up things Jon's managed to convince him count as "best".

"They're bummed you left without hanging out," Ryan continues.

"Sure they are. And it was kind of sudden."

"They don't know that, so, y'know. And don't be a dick."

"I'm not."

Jon hears, in the background, something about phone sex, laughter loud enough he wants to hold the phone away from his ear a little. His own apartment is completely silent, Marley and the cats all asleep somewhere too far away for him to hear their breathing, Marley's little dog snores. Jon needs to wind the stupid antique clock Ryan got him, the ticking is obnoxious but it's something.

"I'm gonna let you go, dude, I have decorating to do."

The plan had been for Jon to stay at Ryan's at least through New Year's, maybe longer, and all his favorite decorations are in a box he'd shipped to Ryan's place before he flew down. If Ryan realizes that, he doesn't let on.

"Right, no, yeah," Ryan says, "sure. I'll, uh, call you later?"

"Sure."

Jon winds the clock and hunts down Clover, because stretching out on the couch to watch too much Food Network is always better with a purring cat on his stomach. The first time the clock chimes, it startles him so badly he scares Clover away; he rolls his eyes and calls Tom.

"I need to get out of here," he says, and barely waits for the address of the bar Tom's already at with Sean before he's out the door.

*

“You’re so fucking _frustrating_ ,” Ryan says, and it sounds like he just threw something. Jon waits for it, for the phone to go silent so he can brace himself for a day, maybe more, maybe a lot more of wondering if maybe he finally did it, finally pushed too hard. He can still hear Ryan breathing, though, a harsh sigh followed by the kind of deep breath Ryan usually takes when he’s mid-fight with Brendon and trying to defuse so he can get the fuck out of there. “If you tell me what you need, I’ll do it. But I don’t know what the fuck to do right now, and I can’t - fuck.”

“It’s - I don’t know, Ryan, if there’s anything you can do, you’re doing it.”

“Yelling at you?”

“Talking to me. Like. It’s. I don’t know, if I could put it into words I’d tell you. It’s easier to remember the reasons I don’t want to fight if I’m not looking at you.”

Ryan sighs again. “Okay. That’s - that kind of sucks for me, but I can deal.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, and maybe he should have apologized before this, apologized better, but the words still feel kind of raw on his tongue, like the part of him that doesn’t think this is his fault isn’t willing to give any ground.

“Okay,” Ryan says. “Did you see Tosh.0 last night?”

*

Jon wakes up with a visible baby bump on December twenty-third, and when he’s checking it out in the mirror notices - okay, probably no one else would think of them as breasts, but his chest is definitely not as flat as it used to be. The rational part of his brain knows it wasn't that sudden, that if he hadn't been so good at denial he might've gotten used to it by now. Plus, with the beard and the bulge in his pants and all the other things about him that say "this is a dude", the little baby bump and not-quite-breasts just kind of look like the beer gut and man-tits of a guy who's stopped working out.

The irrational part of his brain uses his arm to throw a bottle of shampoo at the mirror, and then screams loudly enough to drown out the rational part.

*

Jon fucking loves Marley, but it's hard to hide in bed when he's got a dog to take care of. Cats are better for wallowing; he can refill their food and water whenever he feels like getting up, pet them when they seek him out and demand it, listen to them playing and feel less alone without actually having to _be_ less alone.

When he gets back from taking Marley on the shortest possible walk that'll still keep him happy enough he won't be begging again in an hour, there's a bulky package from Ryan resting against the door. A squishy package that jingles when he opens it; his favorite Christmas sweater, the one he shipped with his decorations so he couldn't forget to pack it.

Jon doesn't call Ryan, because he has to wear four undershirts to hide what his body's turning into, and that's under a bulky sweater. But he sends out an e-mail, the same one to four addresses, _is Ryan doing Christmas stuff with one of you? He shouldn't be alone_ before he goes back to bed to hide a little longer.

He has three replies when he drags himself back up at some ridiculous hour straddling late night and early morning; Z and Alex said essentially the same thing, _You're full of shit, Walker_ and _if you're that worried, call him, dickhead_. Brendon was nice enough to send an outline of all the plans he's aware of, and even if he finished with _btw, stop being an ass_ , it makes Jon feel a little better.

Jon can feel Spencer's disapproval radiating out from the space in his inbox Spencer's reply should be. He deserves that.

*

The idea of lying to his parents about this makes guilt twist hotly in Jon's gut, but it's not so intense he doesn't feel a little relieved when the sweater Ryan returned turns out to be plenty bulky enough to disguise his shape. With four undershirts, he's pretty sure it won't make his mom suspicious even when she hugs him. He’d feel better if he hadn’t gotten rid of his chest binders after his surgery, but the undershirts are better than nothing.

It's not - his parents have been so fucking _good_ about it, about everything, and he can't walk up to his mom and say, "You know how you've gotten used to never getting any grandkids from me? Well, get un-used to it. And then get used to it again." It's not lying, at least not _only_ lying. He's being considerate.

He switches the sweater for his second-favorite, stuffs it in his overnight bag, and gets the pets and gifts gathered up. And if he sits in the car for ten minutes because that's how long it takes to psych himself up, it’s not like any of them are likely to tell anyone.

Within an hour, Jon's almost forgotten why he decided hiding from the world was his first choice; his parents are playing with the cats while Jon wraps a truly ridiculous amount of gifts for his nephew and nieces. There's eggnog, and the whole house smells like Christmas tree, and he's pretty sure there hasn't been thirty seconds of silence since he walked in, and he feels less empty than he has in weeks.

He remembers when his mother corners him in the kitchen just before he goes to bed.

"I'm not Ryan Ross' biggest fan," she says. "But I liked the way you looked when you told us you wouldn't be home for the holidays a lot more than I like the way you look now."

Jon's surprised enough by how close she just came to admitting Ryan might not actually be bad for him he forgets to worry about the baby bump when she hugs him. And, yeah, that - if he has to be _worried_ about hugging his _mom_ , yeah, it kind of makes sense he'd want to avoid people.

*

Jon gets home late on the 25th, so worn out from a day of pretending to be okay enough his parents won't worry too much he just lets the cats out of their carriers and crawls into bed. When he wakes up, too hot in the sweater and extra layers of undershirt he hadn't taken off, it's almost six in the morning.

He fills six dishes, food and water for everyone, and shuts himself in the extra bedroom he uses for a music room. Marley scratches twice, morning and evening, to go out for a short walk in the freezing December air; other than that, Jon doesn't leave the room until he can't stop yawning enough to write.

It's after midnight when that happens. Jon eats a sandwich before he goes to bed, less because he's hungry than because he doesn't think he should go more than twenty-four hours without eating. He wakes up with heartburn and a few more pages of lyrics in his head, so once he makes sure the animals are set he locks himself away again.

And that's what Jon does every day. He switches from writing to playing at one point, from playing for himself to recording, and some days Marley wants to go out more than twice, but mostly it's the same thing all week. His mom calls three times, and he answers, but keeps it short. Tom texts nine or ten, but Jon only answers the last, _did u die or 4get to pay ur bill?_

Ryan calls every day. Jon doesn't answer once.

*

"I'm outside your door," Tom says, and knocks loudly enough Jon can hear it both through the phone and from his bedroom at the far end of the apartment. "And I'm not taking no for an answer."

"I don't feel like going out," Jon says.

"It's amazing how little I care. It's New Year's, dude, take the night off from being emo."

"I'm not being emo," Jon lies; Tom bangs on the door again.

"You should know I am not above calling your mom and telling her I'm worried about you."

"You're too nice for that, you wouldn't want to worry her."

"I kind of am worried about you, though, dude," Tom says, too sincere for Jon to ignore.

"Give me five minutes," Jon says, and starts rummaging for enough clean undershirts to hide his shape. "Fucker. Stop trying to break the door down."

*

Around the time it's too late for anyone to be going to bed, too early for anyone to be waking up, Tom's living room looks a little like a battlefield, hazy with smoke and turned into an obstacle course by all the people who just fell asleep wherever they were sitting when they hit the pass-out point.

“Ryan’s been calling me," Tom says, slow with exhaustion. "I thought you guys were talking."

"We were. We fought again."

"Sucks," Tom says, and takes another sip of beer. The fact that he's still drinking _and_ still conscious is kind of awe-inspiring. "He's - I dunno. I like you two together."

"Yeah, well."

"And sometimes you get kind of oversensitive about things, so maybe - "

"I'm pregnant." Jon regrets it the instant it's out of his mouth, thinks for a desperate minute about how to spin it into a joke. To Tom's credit, his eyes only go wide for a minute; he takes a long swig, almost finishes off the bottle, but Jon can't blame him for stalling. Hell, if his mind weren't whited out, he'd probably appreciate the extra time to think of something to say to make that sound like something other than what it is.

"That- whoa. That's possible?"

Jon snorts. "Apparently, yeah."

"You've been drinking all night."

"I'm not having it, Jesus."

"You - wow. You don't - seriously?"

"No," Jon says. "No, I made it up, because I'm so good about joking about stuff that proves I'm not actually a guy."

Tom smacks his shoulder, hard enough it actually hurts through five layers. "Shut the fuck up, asshole."

"Uh."

"Nothing proves you're not a guy, what the fuck. Nothing can prove that. You're a guy."

"But - "

Tom hits him again, even harder. "Do you remember that dude at your support group with the really great boobs?"

"Uh. Kinda? I - "

"And do you remember almost breaking my nose?"

The one and only time Tom had given him a ride to his support group. Yeah. Jon remembers. "Kind of."

Tom snorts in disbelief, but he doesn't press Jon to admit that yeah, he can replay the whole thing in vivid detail in his head. "If no one gets to say D-cups make him less of a dude, no one gets to say being knocked up makes you less of one. So shut the fuck up, before I have to keep being the kind of asshole that punches pregnant guys." He takes another swig, finishes the bottles, and rolls his eyes at Jon. "Don't cry, dude, I don't know how to respond to that since I can't really call you a girl."

"I'm not crying, asshole," Jon says, instead of the thousand other things he could, should be saying to Tom.

"Just saying," Tom says, and slings his arm around Jon's shoulders. "And...whatever you need, dude. I'll, like, push you down the stairs, if you ask. Please don't ask, though."

The fact that Jon thinks almost seriously about that for even an instant is either a good sign that he's really, really fucked up, or that it's way too late for him to still be awake. Probably both.

"I - thanks, Tom."

"Don't thank me, I'm not finished. We haven't gotten to the part where I call you an asshole for holding Ryan entirely responsible for this."

"I don't."

"Which is why he needs me to tell him no, you're not dead, just a recluse?"

Jon sighs and leans into Tom's side a little. "There's only so much I can handle," Jon says. "And dealing with myself isn't as easy as ignoring a bunch of calls."

There should be more argument, more lecture; however good Jon's reasoning is, and he's not pretending it _is_ any good, he's being a complete dick. Tom just squeezes his shoulder.

"Whatever you need to do," he says. "Come on, Sean's passed out over there, you can crash in his bed."

*

It would be nice to say talking to Tom helped. It did, it really did, but not...it wasn't enough, and when Jon goes home he spends one hour with his pets and twelve shut in the music room. Except maybe the helpfulness was just delayed; when Jon starts yawning, he goes to bed, like he had all the week before, but when he wakes up - there's nothing pushing him back into the same routine.

He plays with the cats with their laser pointer until his wrist aches, because he feels bad for ignoring them, bundles up tight and walks Marley until he acts like he's had enough for the same reason. Then he sits down in the open, in the living room, and picks out the five songs he's okay with anyone else hearing.

Jon spends another hour on it, typing in words that don't look on paper they way they sound in the song, picking a picture at random from his "Nature and stuff" folder, waffling over how much to charge for the one good - maybe good, hopefully good - thing he managed to squeeze out of his breakdown, or whatever that was. It's worth nothing, and it's worth everything, and Jon just closes his eyes and points at the row of number keys.

He e-mails his mom while he waits, because he knows he hasn't done a good enough job pretending to be okay for her to stop worrying. _I've been busy_ , he tells her, and it feels like a lie even though it really isn't. _And it's a rough time of year to be fighting with Ryan, you know?_ That part feels less dishonest, but not totally honest, and Jon ends it there before he makes himself feel any more guilty.

The uploads take forever, big files on a too-slow connection, and Jon ends up just sitting and watching the little progress bar. When it finishes, he tweets before he can decide he doesn't actually want to share this part of himself with anyone. He shuts the computer down, so he doesn't spend all night watching what people are saying, watching the site statistics, puts on a hoodie because he feels weirdly naked right now, and calls Ryan.

"Dude," Ryan says, " _dude_. I was starting to think you died."

"No you weren't."

"No," Ryan agrees. "Tom promised you were alive. Although maybe I was worried you made him promise not to tell me."

Jon could tell Ryan he wouldn't do that, but he wouldn't blame Ryan for not believing him. He could tell Ryan he appreciates the worry, because he does, but that's a little too much to give away right now. He settles on, "are you drunk?"

"Little bit," Ryan says. "It turns out Annie can drink me under the table, which doesn't make any sense. She's, like, me, but a foot shorter."

"I miss you," Jon says; he shouldn't, it gives away a lot more than being glad Ryan worried does. But it's the only thing left after Jon spent a week forcing everything else out, pushing the anger and most of the fear until right now, that's what he feels, that's what he has - Jon misses Ryan, full stop.

"Seriously? I can be on a plane in, like - Alex, dude, Alex, stop looking at porn or whatever and look me up a flight to - "

"No, I - no."

"But - "

"If I see you right now, I'm gonna get mad again."

"So get mad."

"I'm sick of being mad."

Ryan sighs, harsh enough Jon imagines he can feel it through the phone. "Okay. If that's - fine. Okay."

"I'm working on it," Jon says, and it's the first time he's admitted to himself that maybe Ryan isn't the one at fault here, maybe Ryan's not the asshole, or at least not the only asshole. "I'm sorry, just. Stuff."

"Just stuff," Ryan says, and Jon can't read his voice. "Okay. If I call you tomorrow, will you answer?"

"Yeah," Jon says. "Definitely."

*

Jon misses Ryan's call, too busy wrestling two cat carriers through the door to get to his pocket in time. Next year, he'll schedule their boosters on different days. Of course, he said that last year, too.

"Sorry," he says, when he's gotten the cats settled. "Bad time."

"Oh, uh, I can call later."

"No," Jon says, "no, it's fine. I meant just, like, the thirty seconds my phone was ringing were bad."

"Oh. Okay. So, uh," Ryan says, "you didn't tell me you were making music."

"I wasn't the last time I talked to you."

"Yesterday?"

Jon sinks down on the couch. "Right. No, sorry. I didn't - I don't know."

"They're good," Ryan says. "It's good. You - I like them."

"Good. Uh. Thanks."

Silence, then, and Jon scrubs his hand through his hair, waits it out.

"You - you're not okay, are you?"

Jon thinks about lying to him; he meant what he said yesterday, that he doesn't want to be mad and he doesn't think he can see Ryan without _getting_ mad. But he's never been all that subtle a writer, even to people who don't know him as well as Ryan does, and lying to Ryan about this, at least right now, feels a little like cheating at solitaire.

"No," he says. "I'm not."

"Okay," Ryan says. "Okay. Um, is it because - have you done the - gotten the - thing?"

Jon sighs. "No. Not - not yet."

"Do you - should I be there?"

Jon sighs, scrubs his hand through his hair. "I don't think there's going to be a 'there'."

Ryan sucks in a breath so loud Jon can almost feel the suction on his ear. "You're gonna - did you decide to - "

"I didn’t decide, I just...it’s not about deciding," Jon says. "It’s about me being a gigantic pussy."

"Oh," Ryan says, and Jon ignores what sounds like hopefulness lurking in Ryan's voice. If he acknowledges Ryan's not as upset about this as Jon is, he's never - they're never - there's no reason to keep talking to him. "You’re not - don’t call yourself a pussy, dude."

“Chickenshit.”

“Better,” Ryan says. There’s silence, then, and maybe it’s wishful thinking but Jon thinks it feels less awkward than it has for a while. Ryan’s breath keeps hitching on the other end, like he’s about to say something, but it’s almost a full five minutes before anything comes out. “Let me come visit you,” he says.

Jon thinks _maybe_ , but he says, “okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

For all his faults, all his fuckups, Ryan's better at reading Jon - when he wants to be - than probably anyone else. Usually when they're in bed like this, Jon on his back and Ryan on his side, head propped up on one hand, Ryan'll run his other hand up and down Jon's chest and stomach, light enough to raise goosebumps.

But Jon's almost-breasts and stomach are molehill-mountains in Jon's shirt, and he's not sure he can handle anything drawing attention to them; Ryan didn't even hesitate when they settled in, just reached out to rub Jon's arm instead.

"I can call," Ryan says. "If that's - if that's the only problem, I can call for you and set it up."

"And what happens when I'm too freaked out about it to actually go?"

"I'll drag you out."

Jon expects, from the little trying-not-to-laugh tremor in Ryan's voice, to look up and see Ryan smiling; instead he's got this weird half-smile half-grimace thing happening, like he's not sure he wanted to make a joke but can't help wanting to laugh. And Jon wants - or at least thinks he should want - to be mad, to insist this is serious, this isn't a time for fucking jokes, but the image of Ryan trying to _drag_ Jon anywhere is fucking hilarious.

"I'll get Tom to drag you out," he amends.

"Okay, we'll pretend that's a solution. What about when we get there, when they see me?"

"If anyone says a single word you don't like," Ryan says, and suddenly the set of his mouth is serious, his eyes aren't laughing, "I will punch them in the fucking face."

That should be funny, too, because Jon's seen Ryan try to punch someone and it's never anything but funny. But Ryan's eyes are fierce and there's a lump in Jon's throat and he's not sure he could laugh if he wanted to. Jon just rolls over on his side, rests his forehead against Ryan's chest.

"Okay," he says. "Call."

*

Ryan spends half an hour typing and making increasingly frustrated noises before he shuts his laptop loudly enough to startle Clover off of Jon's lap. "This is stupid," he says. "There's literally no possible combination of words that works."

"I told you," Jon says.

"Whatever. That's what phones are for."

"Like anyone's gonna come right out and say 'yeah, no, we'll totally laugh at you and make you feel like a freak'."

"No one's gonna laugh at you."

Jon rolls his eyes, but doesn't give into any of his other urges to fight over this; it's not gonna do him any good to find out how much of a dick he has to be before Ryan stops ignoring it. "I'm taking Marley for a walk."

It's colder than Jon's usual limit, cold enough he'd normally turn back as soon as Marley'd had a chance to yellow some snow, but the sun's bright and warm on his face, and the idea of freezing his fingers off is more appealing than sitting around listening to Ryan try and make sure some random doctor isn't going to make this even worse for Jon.

Marley starts trying to turn him around before Jon's ready to go back, but if there's one thing he always puts above his own shit it's his pets, and Marley shouldn't have to freeze because Jon's a coward. Ryan's making sandwiches when they get back, even though it's too late for lunch and too early for dinner.

"Friday," he says, and, "pickles, or no?"

"Pickles. And are you sure?"

Ryan shrugs. "I was on the phone for like an hour and a half. If you didn't trust me to ask the right questions, you should have stayed."

"I trust you," Jon says, a little surprised by just how much he means that. "So, okay. Friday."

"I checked with Tom, and he's free, if you don't want me there."

"I need you there," Jon says. "Maybe Tom, too. But you're coming."

He's not sure if that's something to smile about, but he's not going to pretend he's not a little relieved when Ryan turns around to bring the sandwiches to the table and he's got that lazy pleased smile Jon always wants to kiss. Ryan puts a sandwich with at least two layers of pickles in front of Jon, and with him that close there's no reason not to go ahead and kiss him.

"I'm glad you came," he says, when Ryan pulls back, angle awkward on his neck. Ryan doesn't say anything, but his smile gets wider.

*

There are protesters outside, but not many, and Jon's so wrapped up in his own head it's easy to ignore them, to pretend there's nothing past the solidness of Tom and Ryan closing ranks on either side of him. Ryan makes some snide remark about being there to pick up loose women - he actually uses the phrase "loose women", God - and they're inside.

Everyone else in the waiting room is a woman, but the receptionist doesn't even blink when Jon checks in. Ryan must have done okay with the research.

Tom fidgets, twisting his fingers in the drawstrings of his hoodie, because when Tom's in an uncomfortable situation he takes pictures but Jon and Ryan hadn't let him bring a camera. Ryan fidgets, bouncing his leg and tapping his fingers on the arm rest. Jon sits almost completely still and focuses on breathing.

What he remembers between that and waking up in his bedroom isn't much: the nurse said his name, again without any indication "Jon" is a weird name for someone who wants an abortion, the room she took him too was freezing; he didn't want to take his pants off in front of Tom but he wanted Tom to leave even less than that; he woke up halfway to the car, leaning heavily on Tom, Ryan talking heatedly, too fast for Jon's brain to process any of the words.

When he wakes up in his own room, it's dark outside, and there are low voices coming from the kitchen. He gets up, winces at the soreness between his legs, and stumbles a little on his way down the hall.

"You should probably stay in bed," Ryan says, when he sees Jon.

"Probably," Jon agrees, but he steps into the kitchen instead of turning around. His mouth feels like cotton, but there aren't any clean glasses.

"How're you feeling, dude?" Tom asks.

"Thirsty," Jon says, because his head is still fuzzy, too fuzzy to really process anything. He's sore, and groggy, and...something else, something he can't put his finger on. He keeps looking in the cupboards, like if he stares hard enough a clean glass will materialize. There's shuffling behind him, the refrigerator opens and closes, and Ryan presses a bottle into Jon's hand. Of course Ryan would go buy water instead of doing dishes, of course he would. "Thanks."

"You should probably sit down. Or, like, can you sit down?"

"I can," Jon says, and turns so his back's resting against the counter, "but leaning's fine."

"Okay. Um. Okay. Like, do you - what can I - "

"Tell him how you almost got thrown out," Tom says.

"I didn't almost get thrown out."

"He screamed at a nurse."

"I didn't _scream_ , I corrected him. He asked how 'she' was doing, fucking stupid."

"It was yelling, if not screaming." Tom's grinning; Jon probably shouldn't be, should be annoyed that Ryan made a scene, but he can't keep from smiling himself. He takes a few swigs, almost half the bottle, and then rests his head on Ryan's shoulder. It's getting too heavy to hold up on his own.

"Hey," Ryan says.

"Hi."

Tom rolls his eyes a little and stands up. "I was gonna walk Marley, but we couldn't find his leash."

"In the coffee table drawer," Jon says; Tom nods and leaves them alone.

"You okay?" Ryan asks, rubs Jon's shoulder a little.

"Tired," he says, because he's not sure he can really answer that question yet.

"Okay," Ryan says, "let’s go to bed."

*

Like every other time they've fallen asleep together, Jon wakes up before Ryan. Unlike almost every other time, instead of using the time to do something useful, Jon opens the closet door so he can look in the one full-length mirror in the apartment. He looks, and then he takes off his shirt and looks more, and he's so intent on the shape of his stomach he doesn't see or hear Ryan coming up behind him until Ryan's hands cover his own on his stomach.

"I don't look any different," Jon says, when it's clear Ryan isn't going to say anything.

Ryan hunches down enough to hook his chin over Jon's shoulder. "No. But it just looks like a beer gut."

It probably does, objectively; as anxious as Jon gets about passing, as sure as he is that even the littlest slip up is as obvious to the rest of the world as it is to him, a stomach like this on a short, stocky, bearded guy isn't going to say "pregnant" to anyone. But Jon isn't - can't be - objective about it. He knows what it is, and why it's there, and what it means.

"It's kind of cute," Ryan says, kisses Jon's shoulder, then up to Jon's neck. Jon is acutely aware he didn't bother to put his harness on when they got home yesterday. He shifts away; Ryan lets him.

"We should get pancakes," Jon says.

*

Jon starts jogging in the morning, which makes Marley the happiest dog in the world. It's freezing, at its warmest, and Jon's painfully out of shape, but Marley wags his tail in delight when Jon slides out of bed, toes on his sneakers, and grabs the leash, and Jon can pretend that's his motivation.

"Don't overdo it," is all Ryan says, the one morning he's awake when Jon gets back. It's the same thing he says the few times he catches Jon doing sit-ups in the living room. Jon knows his limits, though, and Ryan doesn't push.

In bed, Ryan lets his hands skim over Jon's arms, his chest, never Jon's stomach; he rolls Jon onto his back, settles between his thighs, lines their dicks up and rolls his hips until they both come. Jon doesn't take his underwear off, for sex or for sleeping; Ryan doesn't push.

"Do you need me to make your follow-up appointment for you?" Ryan asks, over grilled cheese for dinner a week after the abortion.

"Maybe," Jon says, "or I can." He doesn't call, or tell Ryan to call. Ryan doesn't push.

*

"It's like living with a fucking ghost," Jon says, ignores Tom taking a picture of him taking a picture of a tree so he won't ruin Tom's shot with awareness. "A really agreeable ghost."

Tom snaps twice as many pictures of Jon as Jon does of the tree. "The last time he argued with you, you ran halfway across the country and ignored him," he says. "I'd be agreeable, too."

"That wasn't an argument," Jon says, turns to take a picture of Tom with the camera halfway to his face.

"Point stands," Tom says; Jon can almost make out the individual words in the puffs of steam from his breath in the freezing air. "Fighting with you sucks, dude. Especially with gender stuff."

"So I should let that shit slide?"

Tom lifts the camera back up, but he doesn't take any pictures, just uses it to hide his face. It's one of the best things about photography, having an automatic way to shield yourself from the conversation; it's one of the worst things about Tom, how he uses it to keep going past the point Jon's other friends would have gotten too uncomfortable to keep talking. Maybe it's one of the best things about Tom, too.

"Maybe? Not always. Sometimes you're really cool about shit like calling you a bitch, or whatever. But I don't mean let it slide, I mean don't get so _you_ about it. Like, you don't yell it out and get it over with, you just get all quiet and stew for weeks. It sucks."

"Ryan knew what he was getting into."

Tom shrugs. "Sure. And you knew what you were getting with Ryan. That hasn't stopped you from expecting some level of change, right? Could you be with Ryan if he was the same way about gender stuff now as he was the first time you fucked?"

There's a really great shrub Jon is so intent on taking a picture of he can't possibly answer Tom right away. Tom doesn't seem to care.

"Ryan tries, dude. And no, you don't have to put up with shit that hurts you just because he's trying. But you don't have to keep making it worse and worse for him to fuck up."

"I don't. Just when it's a bigger thing - "

"You getting pregnant wasn't just his fuckup, Jon."

There's a part of Jon's brain, a big part, that knows that; knows that even if not using a condom was all Ryan's problem, which it isn't, necessarily, he might have been better at it if Jon hasn't made such a big deal about how nothing could be different, if he didn't make it so if Ryan was anything less than perfect, they fought. And maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, maybe if Jon held his hand and coddled him every time he got confused about something he still wouldn't have asked, or thought of it. Maybe.

But.

“I don’t think you give him enough credit,” Tom says. “You were fucking psycho when you went off T, and I don’t think anyone would’ve blamed him for siding with Brendon and Spencer a lot more than he did. He puts up with so much shit from you, and I don’t think it’s ever occurred to you that maybe your reaction to that should be something other than expecting him to deal with more.”

Jon bites his lip against the urge to yell at Tom, clenches his fist against the urge to hit him. Tom’s the only person left in Jon’s life who’ll say this kind of shit to him, and yeah, Jon kind of prefers it that way, but he’s a rational enough person to know stopping Tom would be the stupidest thing he could do.

"It's fucking freezing," he says, finally. Tom just nods.

"I've got plenty, yeah. Coffee and home?"

"Coffee and home," Jon agrees. He doesn't add _thank you_ , or _I'm lucky to have you_ , but he buys Tom's coffee for him; he figures Tom knows what that means.

*

Jon has every intention of talking to Ryan, but when he gets home Ryan's high as a fucking kite, cooing over the texture of Dylan's fur. That's both fucking adorable and a horrible starting point for a serious talk, so Jon just packs his own pipe and sets about catching up to Ryan.

He loses track of how many bowls they go through; the clock chiming startles him twice, so at least an hour passes. At some point Ryan abandons Dylan - or Dylan finds something better to do - to pet Jon. Jon's so fucking high he manages to distract himself from that by wiggling his toes in the socks he hadn't taken off when he came in from hanging out with Tom. Tom, right, stuff he wanted to talk about because of Tom.

"I don't know why you haven't left yet," Jon says, rolls a little to rest his cheek on Ryan's stomach. The way his beard feels against the thin cotton covering Ryan's skin is amazing.

"Do you want me to? I just got here.”

"No," Jon says, "like, left me. Given up."

The way the fabric of his shirt pulls means Ryan's probably shrugging. Or yawning. "I have a shelf full of books about being transsexual and a fucking seven-foot-high cat toy in my living room," he says. "If that's what you're waiting for, you're as stupid as you think I am."

"I don't think you're stupid."

"Ignorant."

"Not in the bad way."

"Yeah, I can tell by how upset you get about it, you obviously love that about me.”

Jon sighs, pushes Ryan's shirt up so he can rest his hand on his bare stomach. Ryan's skin is so warm, so fucking soft, one of Jon's favorite things to touch. "I used to - when I got my period, I would sit in my room for, like, hours, and cry. And I would, like, try to picture myself happy. Sometimes I couldn't do it. A lot of times. Like. It only ever worked when I pretended that I hadn't been born like this. And I can't - I don't think I can be happy. If I have to acknowledge it for the rest of my life."

"Okay," Ryan says. "I - okay. That's. You get it, though, that you're kind of forcing me to acknowledge it all the time? Like I can't just treat you like I treat any other guy."

"Bullshit," Jon says; somewhere in the distant parts of his mind he's angry, but it's a slow anger, boiling just out of reach, not enough to make him sit up or stop touching.

"I can call Spencer a housewife, and Brendon a princess, and I can make fun of how Greenwald's bathroom is totally a girl bathroom with all his, like, shower stuff and hair stuff and...stuff. I have to not do that with you, which means I have to remember you're different. And it's not like I mind doing it, obviously I fuck up, but I try. But if your goal is to make me forget, that's not gonna work. I can forget the trans stuff, to an extent, and treat you like I treat everyone else, or I can remember and avoid the stuff that bothers you. I don't think it's possible to do both."

Jon rubs his cheek against Ryan's shirt, sighs a little when Ryan starts petting him again. "I don't know what to do," Jon says. "I don't know how to do this. I never - I never even bothered trying to picture myself _with_ someone, because I thought it was stupid to expect anyone to put up with this."

"Okay," Ryan says again. "That's - it's not _good_ , obviously, that sucks, but, like, it's good that you said that? We can work with that."

"You need to make my follow-up appointment," Jon tells Ryan's stomach. "I can't do it."

"In the morning," Ryan says, and that's probably not where the conversation should end, but the soothing motion of Ryan's fingers in his hair and the steady way his stomach rises and falls under Jon's cheek and hand is a little too much to stay awake through.

*

Jon has to stretch twice as long before his jog the next morning, stiff and achy from sleeping on the floor. He thinks, briefly, about waking Ryan up, but Ryan is fucking murderous if he doesn't wake up under his own power. That, and Jon kind of wants some time to process before they have to talk more.

There are things Jon doesn't tell people, and things he never wants people to know. Sometimes they're separate - there's plenty of stuff he doesn't care if people find out secondhand, and a few things he's willing to tell people out of necessity even if he doesn't actually want the information out there - but mostly they overlap. "I'm a transsexual" was, for a long time, both, but thanks to Ryan it's just the second thing now. "I can't ever be happy if I don't pretend I'm someone else" was, for obvious reasons, another one that fell in both categories. There were reasons, lots of reasons, some good and some bad, Jon never bothered to envision himself dating. This constant revision of his own boundaries was a big one, this constant need to move the goal posts because he has something important to lose if he won’t move them.

Ryan's awake when he gets back, curled up on the couch with his phone in his hands, staring out the window at nothing in particular.

"Next Wednesday at one-thirty," he says without looking up, when Jon gets a bottle of water and flops down on the other end of the couch.

"Okay," Jon says, and waits for Ryan to keep talking. He doesn't, though, just fiddles with his phone and keeps looking out the window long past the point the silence shifts from awkward to comfortable.

"When I was a teenager," he says, finally, "The only fantasy that ever worked was the one where Spencer and I took the world by storm, and I had eight Grammys, and a mansion with, like, my high school's football team on staff to do humiliating stuff whenever I wanted."

"Okay."

"Teenagers are stupid," Ryan says, looks away from the window. "And fantasies aren't supposed to be stuff we can have."

"It's not really the same thing."

"No," Ryan says, "not exactly. But it's not totally different, either. And, like, I don't have eight Grammys, and I'm never going to, and I like my house, and why would I want to pay those assholes for anything? I guess you could argue the taking-the-world-by-storm thing, but that didn't really go the way I planned, either. But I'm happy."

"It's not - "

"I'm glad you had that fantasy, if that's what you needed to get through how hard that stuff must have been for you. But I think you're cheating yourself if you assume if you can't have that in reality, you can't be happy. You're never gonna be a dude who was born with a dick, and I'm sorry, because I know that sucks for you, and it's bullshit what you've had to deal with. But at some point I think maybe you need to look at yourself and be able to say 'I'm never going to have that, but I like what I do have'."

"I do like what I have," Jon says, and pokes Ryan with his toe. Ryan's answering smile is wide and genuinely pleased.

"Okay," he says. "That's a start."

*

Every intention Jon had of talking through his shit with Ryan vanishes in the face of Ryan's sudden, and apparently isolated, willingness to call Jon on his bullshit. It's not like Jon doesn't think they need to talk, that Ryan's little moment of pushing back suddenly made Jon decide Tom was wrong, that he thinks he shouldn't get called on his crap, that _Ryan_ shouldn't call him on his crap. Just, he kind of feels like there's another shoe that needs to drop, and he can't bring himself to start the conversation with that hanging over his head.

"You two should come for dinner," Jon's mom says, when he finally tells her Ryan flew up and they're working stuff out, so they do. It's exactly as awkward as it always is when Ryan has to interact with Jon's parents - he's not good with parents in general, Spencer's mom excluded, and he's convinced Jon's parents don't like him. It's nice, though, and Jon thinks that however justified he was in keeping Ryan at a distance for a while, it would have been even nicer if they could have done this for Christmas.

"I want to try something," Ryan mumbles against his lips, gangly limbs tangled up in Jon's. Jon could tense up, pull away, get mad at Ryan for pushing, for daring to think he has a right to ask for things in bed; he could say no, because whatever it is Ryan wants, Jon doesn't like to push unless it's his idea. Instead he asks what it is Ryan wants, and for the first time they fuck without Jon's underwear on, Ryan riding Jon, losing his rhythm more than once to let his hands wander, never farther than Jon's comfortable with. Jon works his harness off under the covers, after; he'd forgotten how nice it was to sleep skin-to-skin.

"The Nicks aren't ever gonna talk to you again," Andy says, laughing a little over his drink. "No one burns bridges like Jonny Walker."

Jon waits for Ryan's reaction, braces himself for the reaction he totally deserves. It was one thing to throw his fit, to run away, to make Ryan suffer through the distance and the silence, but another thing entirely to wreck his band. But Ryan just shrugs, shirt dragging against Jon's where they're pressed together in the booth. "Young Veins was a stupid band name, anyway," he says, and Jon laughs in relief.

At home, Ryan pushes him against their bedroom door and hits his knees; Jon doesn't argue when Ryan pulls his underwear down with his jeans, or make Ryan wait until he switches to the dick they usually use for sex. Ryan gives him the world's sloppiest blowjob, all tongue and spit and watching Jon through his eyelashes because as long as he uses his fist to rock the base of Jon's dick so Jon gets enough friction, the rest can be for show. Jon comes with his fingers wound tight in Ryan's hair, and forgets to care that was the first time Ryan's face has been that close without underwear hiding what Jon doesn't like the idea of him seeing.

*

"Does it make it better or worse if I remind you I've already seen everything? Tom and I both, during the thing." Ryan asks. He's spooned up behind Jon, arm around Jon's waist; when Jon shifts, he takes the hint and slides it up a little, just under his chest.

"I don't know," Jon says. "I hadn't really thought about it."

"Okay. So pretend I haven't - what do you think is going to happen, when - if - you do let me?"

It all feels far-off and unspecific, lying in their bed with Ryan wrapped warm around him, fears that make perfect sense when he doesn't think about them too hard, when he doesn't put them into words he can argue with. "I don't - I mean, I _know_ , but I don't - I don't know how to say it."

Ryan nods, kisses Jon's shoulder. "Because it's been a week and a half, and nothing bad's happened."

"Your logic has no place here," Jon says, turns his face towards the pillow to muffle it a little. He's trying to joke, to break the suffocating tension he thinks maybe only he feels, but it's more truthful than he'd like to admit. Jon's built his life around a certain set of boundaries, and beliefs, and yeah, fears, and they're breaking through too many of them in too short a time.

"I'll back off tonight," Ryan says, "but not forever."

"No," Jon says, "you shouldn't - this is good, I think. It's just not really easy for me."

Ryan nods again. "Can I try something? You can tell me to stop anytime."

Jon takes a deep breath, turns his face into the pillow a little more, tries to focus on the last couple times he's let Ryan try things, how good it felt to push through. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

The path of Ryan's hand down Jon's stomach, past his bellybutton, down - down there - is agonizingly slow; he's giving Jon plenty of time to stop him, to draw the line, but Jon - Ryan's right, he's seen it, and he hasn't left, or suddenly forgotten not to call Jon "she", or any of the million other things Jon had convinced himself were good reasons to keep hiding. He clenches his fingers tight in the sheets, and spreads his legs a little so Ryan can cup his hand between them, lightly enough Jon can barely feel him.

"Okay?"

"Okay," Jon says, voice less shaky than he feels. Ryan pushes up a little, meets Jon with a kiss when he finally manages to look away from the pillow and face Ryan. He slips his hand out, back up to rest on Jon's waist while they kiss; when Jon wakes up, Ryan's clutching him so tightly he can't get out of bed right away.

*

The whole making progress thing is a lot less painful than Jon expected; the more they push, the more examples of how good it can be once he gets past the initial anxiety Jon has to cling to, the easier it is to push. Ryan gets him off like that one night, hand cupped between Jon's legs, holding still so Jon can grind against him, as much or as little contact as he wants.

It's only the third time in his life Jon’s come without his dick in the way; he shakes through it, has to push Ryan's hand away almost before he's finished. Ryan jerks himself off, almost frantic with it, comes over his fist and stomach before Jon's gotten over the wrung-out heaviness in his limbs, gotten past _did I really just let him do that?_ He feels a little guilty, but Ryan doesn't seem to care, just wipes off on the sheets and nuzzles into Jon's neck, falls asleep smiling.

They shift enough in the night Jon wakes up with Ryan's thigh between his, pressed up against him. He takes a minute, a few minutes, to savor how good it feels to not panic about it.

*

"Do you think cats have souls?"

Jon's going to answer, tell Ryan of course he does, but as soon as Ryan gets the question out, Clover bats at his face then uses his bladder as a launch pad to jump to the floor, and Jon can't stop laughing at Ryan's genuinely injured look.

"He's going to pee in my shoes," Ryan says, so dismayed Jon just laughs harder.

"Serves you right," he says, when he finally catches his breath. "How the fuck would there be a cat heaven if cats didn't have souls?"

"You're high."

"Obviously," Jon says. "But I'm also right."

"Sure, okay." Ryan raises his voice, like he wants to make sure anyone who might pee in his shoes is listening. "Cats totally have souls. Totally."

*

"I want to - uh. Are you cold?"

Ryan's blinking at him in confusion, and now is maybe not the best time to think Jon should have warned him in advance what he was thinking for tonight. Ryan eyes him, the thick flannel pants over his boxers over his harness, the faded Cubs shirt covering his torso.

"No, uh, I think - with tomorrow, I think I need the night off from pushing." Jon's been mastering the skill of denial most of his life, and it's paid off, but tonight he has to set the alarm so they can go to his follow-up appointment tomorrow, and he can't just pretend that's not going to happen, or that the idea of the part of him he's most insecure about showing is going to be examined in some detail.

"I don't think that's the best idea," Ryan says; Jon rolls his eyes.

"Good for you. I do."

"And we don't have to _push_ , but you've gone back to, like - I don’t think you should undo all your progress."

"I need to be comfortable tonight to handle tomorrow, and I'm sorry if you can't handle that."

"You are not," Ryan says. "And I don't think you're uncomfortable with stuff that's better than going back to square one. You’ve got, like, eight layers on, that’s more than you’ve worn in bed with me for years."

"And at no point in those years have I been preparing to let a doctor look at my fucking vagina, Ryan, I'm not fucking arguing about this."

"I don't want to argue, I just want to talk about it. If you're not okay with what we've been doing, we need to talk."

"I'm okay with it. But this is easier for me, and I need easy."

"Okay. I just - I think it would be good if you could, like, talk to me about this shit."

"I can. We just talked. Now I'm going to sleep." Jon slides under the covers and rolls over so his back's to Ryan, keeping enough distance between them to make a point. Ryan doesn't move or shut off his light, just sits there like he's reading. After what feels like forever goes by with no pages turning, Jon sighs and rolls over. "I can't fight tonight, because tomorrow is gonna take, like, all my coping skills."

"It doesn't have to be a fight," Ryan says, puts his book aside. "I don't get why you act like there's no difference between talking and fighting."

"Do you remember what I told you when I said I was going off T?"

"I don't know what that has to do with anything," Ryan says, frustration clear in his voice. "But it was something to do with your voice, right? You didn't want it any deeper. And side effects, maybe?"

Jon scoots over so he can rest his head on Ryan's stomach. Ryan isn't frustrated enough not to take that as a clear sign Jon wants to be pet, at least. "I went off T because my doctor was retiring, and I didn't like the idea of being forced to see a new one. Everywhere else, with everyone else, I get to decide how much of me to talk about, how much of me anyone can see. I don't like being in a situation where I can't control that."

Ryan just pets him without talking for a long time, before he finally slides down so he's face-to-face with Jon. "That," he says, and Jon's surprised a little by how relieved he is to see the smile playing at the corners of Ryan's mouth, "is a way better reason to have broken up my band."

"The band would have broken up anyway, asshole."

"Probably," Ryan says, and this time he really does smile. "But it would have been way less entertaining."

Jon barks out a laugh at that, tucks his face into Ryan's neck. "Probably."

"We'll get through tomorrow," Ryan says, into the top of Jon's head. "And then you can go back to only ever being as naked as you want."

That's probably not the best attitude; Ryan should probably be doing what Tom does, lecture him about all the risks he's taking refusing to ever go to a doctor. Right then. though, the idea that Ryan won't ever push him in this one place he really truly can't handle being pushed is enough to lull him into a far more restful sleep than he'd been expecting.

*

Ryan wraps his arm around Jon's waist as they walk out, and Jon doesn't know whether to lean into it or pull away. He wants to hold onto him, make Ryan bring him somewhere and say "this is my boyfriend" because Ryan believes it, he's never not believed that, never hesitated to refer to Jon as guy, dude, boy. He wants to hide, go somewhere and shut himself in a room with a mirror just big enough he can look at his beard, can rest his hand on the bulge in his jeans and shut his fucking brain off. He has a folder of bookmarks of people calling him Panic's real boy, laughing about how he's too manly for them, he could go read that for a few hours. He could go buy clothes, underwear, anything, and not worry like he used to the cashier thinks he must be a girl buying for her boyfriend because he has a beard and he's a man, dammit.

"I need to get drunk," Jon says, instead of any of the hundred options racing in his head. It's exactly the wrong thing; Ryan goes noticeably still for too long in the driver's seat. At least they're at a red light, fuck. Ryan's gotten receptive enough to alcohol - and a thousand other substances - Jon forgets, too often, he still has a thing about using it as a coping mechanism.

"Could you go to Tom's for that?" he asks, before Jon can apologize. "Or, I guess it's your place, I can go somewhere for a while. Andy and I were - "

"No, shit," Jon says. "You don't - that was shitty. No, I won't. Just. Fuck, that was awful, I need to - something."

Ryan reaches over, squeezes Jon's knee, keeps his hand there when he starts driving again. "We can get really, really high," he says. "Like. Super high."

It takes longer than Jon would like to get high enough to settle him down, but a lot less time than it would have taken to get drunk enough, and without the potential for feeling like shit and fighting with Ryan later. They're sprawled on the couch, and Ryan's giving Jon a foot rub because Jon was in no way above shoving his feet in Ryan's lap in anticipation of the moment he got high enough to get touch-hungry and go for the nearest skin.

"You okay?"

"Better," Jon says, because he's not sure he can say _yes_ honestly. With his head turned towards the back of the couch, talking makes his beard rub against the fabric, and the sensation swirls through his veins and meets the fucking awesome feeling of Ryan working his long fingers between Jon's toes somewhere low in Jon's stomach. "You should," he starts, bites his lip because he's not sure he can say it. Ryan just keeps rubbing. "It's stupid that I'd let some doctor I've seen twice see more of me than you get to."

Jon’s been with Ryan for just under four years, and Jon’s only let Ryan actually touch him for three fucking weeks. It’s fucking stupid and he can be mad at himself for it, he can even get mad at Ryan for just letting him be so selfish about it, or he can stop with the fucking baby steps so in another year he won’t still have this same exact regret.

Ryan stops rubbing; Jon tries not to kick at him to get him to start again. "I try not to think about it that way," he says, and starts again. "I would - it's not fair, it's not fucking fair at all. But I don't get to tell you what to do with your body, that would suck. As much as I want to."

"You should go down on me," Jon says. "Like, _me_ , not my dick."

Ryan blinks, twice, opens his mouth and closes it, blinks again. "You can't just say that, holy shit," he says. "You're a dude, you should understand the severity of blue balls."

"I'm serious."

"You're high."

"I'd chicken out sober, I think," he says, and finally gives in to his urge to poke Ryan with his toes. "Man up and eat me out, Ross."

"You can't just - Jesus _fuck_ ," Ryan says, and clambers over Jon to kiss him senseless.

Ryan gets Jon's harness tangled in his boxers tangled in his jeans caught around his ankle, elbows Jon twice in his pot-hazy overenthusiastic rush, wraps his lips around Jon and sucks until Jon can't breathe, can't stop jerking his hips, and when Jon comes it's intense enough he almost feels too weak to tug Ryan off when he doesn't stop.

"Like a guy," he pants, and he's not sure it's clear but Ryan gets it, at least enough to slide back up Jon's body, kiss him deep and dirty and wet.

"That was - fuck," Ryan says.

"Yeah," Jon agrees, and pushes him back against the couch to return the favor.

*

"Stop fucking smiling," Tom says, and snaps the picture without waiting for Jon to actually stop. "You're ruining the mood."

"The sky and the ground are the same color," Jon says, kicks at some snow. "I don't think my face is doing anything to change that."

"Which is why I'm going for 'bleak', and your stupid face isn't falling in line."

Jon adopts an exaggerated frown, and Tom takes five or six pictures of it, then shifts so Jon's not in the frame any more. Which is fine, because it's fucking freezing, and the sky's the same gross muted depressing-as-Hell gray as the ground, and Jon had fucking fantastic sex before he came to meet Tom, and Tom is being ridiculous about his art, and Jon doesn't see any reason to stop smiling.

"I don't really want you to stop smiling," Tom says, kicks at a pile of snow and makes his stupid I'm-contemplating-the-artistic-value-of-the-universe face before he takes a picture of the patch of gray sidewalk surrounded by the snow that doesn't look quite so gray in contrast. "I like this new, improved, not-a-sulky-asshole Jon."

"Fuck you." Jon punches his arm, just enough to get Tom smiling too. "You should like sulky, if you're after 'bleak' all of a sudden."

"I'm after 'bleak' _today_ , because I don't think I can manage anything else. Not, like, as a lifestyle choice."

"Your apartment is the bleakest place I've ever been, dude, if you're aiming for anything else, you missed."

"It's not my fault Sean doesn't know how to do dishes or laundry."

"It's your fault _you_ don't."

Tom thinks on that for a second, then shrugs. "If he wore more color, the piles of clothes would probably be more cheerful."

Jon doesn't say anything about Tom's black-on-gray-on-black outfit, because Tom is the kind of person who would start pointing out that his blacks are somehow more colorful than Sean's. He knows just enough color theory to make it sound logical, too, but maybe only because Jon knows about the same amount of color theory. Tom looks around, tilts his head at the dead tree stark against the sky, then shrugs and starts walking. "So when's Ross abandoning us for warmer climates?"

Uh. "He isn't, I don't think."

"Does he live here now? I kind of figured you'd go with him, since he wilts like a delicate flower in the snow."

"Marley does like his place better," Jon says. "Better backyard."

"With anyone else, I'm not sure I'd believe the dog was the deciding factor, but I'm not even gonna pretend like I don't think you'd move cross-country based on what Marley wants."

"I'm not moving based on what Marley wants. I'm not - we haven't talked about moving."

Tom stops in his tracks and lifts his camera to snap a picture of Jon's profile. "I think it's time to admit you don't have any room to act like I'm the one of us who sucks at communicating, dude."

That's the most ridiculous thing Jon's ever heard, but it might be true. Tom sucks at _talking_ , but he's good at making his position clear other ways. If he's honest with himself, he's pretty sure the guy who can only handle the long-distance relationship thing with frequent, long visits loses to the guy who can go months without seeing his girlfriend without worrying, without the relationship suffering.

"We just haven't talked about it," Jon says. "That doesn't mean we won't."

Tom snorts in disbelief, but doesn't say anything else.

*

It's not that Jon's stupid, or oblivious, it's just that he knows Ryan, so when Tom asked him to walk around and take pictures for a while on Valentine's Day, he considered the possibility it was to get him out of the house so Ryan could make whatever arrangements he might need, and discarded it for the probability Tom was just lonely on one of the few days Skype dates don't really cut it.

When he opens the door, Marley's chewing on a plastic rose, and the cats are fighting over another one. There's a trail of them leading to the bedroom, because of course Ryan wouldn't remember that you can't just leave plastic shit all over the floors in a house full of pets who think "on the floor" means "food". Marley gives his up pretty easily, though, and the cats have forgotten there even are roses in favor of chasing their tails, so Jon's more charmed than annoyed.

Ryan is usually the kind of romantic who does things like write stupidly sweet songs just to be surprised when people actually find them stupidly sweet, or forgets all the groceries they actually need but remembers Jon wishing they had avocados for his sandwich a week ago. He's not really a roses kind of guy, or a Valentine's kind of guy; they tend to spend the day enjoying one of their favorite restaurants that has the kind of shitty ambiance that scares guys trying to impress their girlfriends away, or forgetting it happened until three days later when they've missed all the good candy sales.

Jon gathers up the roses on his way to the bedroom - there's twelve, because of course Ryan wouldn't go half-cliché - and drops them all when he opens the bedroom door. Not because there's anything surprising back there, but holy _fuck_ the synthetic smell of cheap rose candles smacks him in the face and leaves him breathless for a second. Clearly, Ryan didn't half-ass the candles, either.

He's not in the bedroom, and Jon's going to have to have a leaving-candles-unattended talk when he has the leaving-shit-the-animals-will-choke-on-on-the-floor talk. He shoves those thoughts to the back of his mind; Ryan went to all this trouble, the least he could do is enjoy it. There are rose petals on the bed, of course there are, and a light on in the bathroom.

And, uh, a full bubble bath in the bathroom. Ryan's sitting on the edge of the tub, looking half anxious and half incredibly pleased with himself. It's, weirdly, kind of a good look on him.

"I thought you might be cold," he says, with all the fake casualness of someone who spent all day figuring out the most casual way to present a path of roses leading to a bubble bath.

"I don't think I've taken a bubble bath since I was six years old," Jon says, tugs his shirt off.

"Yeah, well, these are grownup bubbles. And if you weren't so picky about Bath & Body Works scents, it'd be easier to buy you a present there, this is like all they had that wasn’t the wrong smell.“

"I didn't get you anything," Jon says while he kicks his pants aside.

Ryan shrugs. "I kind of owe you. And you kind of have."

Jon isn't sure that's okay, that Ryan thinks Jon trying to have a healthy relationship with him is a _gift_ instead of just something he should be doing, should have been doing from the start. He unbuckles his harness under his boxers, shoves them down together. It's not something he's let Ryan see, tends to take the last layer off in the bathroom, or under the covers, or with Ryan's back turned. Jon doesn't get naked, Jon gets down to his boxers, and then when he lets Ryan look again he just _is_ naked.

Still, if Ryan wants to think of this stuff as a present, now would be the time to give him a little more. Ryan's eyes sliding over him don't make him feel anywhere near as uncomfortable as they used to, not uncomfortable at all, actually, just a little warm, a little turned on, a little like he might actually be nice to look at. If Ryan's not gonna act like he doesn't like what he sees, Jon's gonna try to take him at his word.

"It might be getting a little cold," Ryan says, with his eyes hovering somewhere around Jon's bellybutton. "I told Tom three o'clock."

"Tom and clocks have a weird relationship," Jon says. The water is a little cooler than he expected, but still good, nice and soothing on his cold skin. Ryan's face is all pleased, now, and Jon should maybe do more to make him look like that more often, considering how much he likes it.

Ryan kneels next to the tub to wash Jon's back when he leans forward and raises his eyebrow in question, and then keeps going, dragging the washcloth up and down Jon's legs. He lets it drift away when Jon spreads his legs a little in invitation, rubs the heel of his palm against Jon's - against Jon, kisses him thorough and eager and doesn't falter when Jon starts jerking his hips against the pressure of Ryan's hand, sloshing water and bubbles over the side of the tub.

Jon never ends up giving Ryan the lecture about his dog eating plastic roses, or how unattended candles are how houses burn down, because Ryan goes down on Jon on top of the stupid plastic rose petals, then Jon lets Ryan buckle the harness on, because it doesn't make Ryan think of him as any less of a dude, or any more of a dude, it just means Ryan can ride him, hands braced on Jon's chest and hips rolling in a rhythm that has Jon on the edge way faster than he should after two orgasms.

"I forgot to ask before I went for the second one," Ryan mumbles against Jon's chest, at least half asleep. "That was okay, though?"

The multiple orgasm thing, it turns out, isn't so much emasculating as fucking awesome. And there are plenty of guys with quick recovery times, right? Right. "It was great, Ryan, it - thank you."

Ryan presses a sleepy kiss right where he insists he can't actually tell Jon has a scar from his top surgery. "Thank _you_ ," he says; Jon's pretty sure he's asleep before he actually finishes saying it.

*

For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, Ryan wakes up before Jon. Not too long, the bed's still warm, but it's a little jarring to wake up alone when it's not because Jon fell asleep alone the night before.

Ryan's in the kitchen, contemplating the ingredients for pancakes laid out on the counter, munching on the blueberries that were supposed to go in the pancakes before they went in Ryan's mouth. The carton's half-empty, and Ryan’s fingers and lips are tinted purple.

"Is this a hint?" Jon asks, picks up the carton of eggs.

"I was gonna make them, but remember the French toast disaster? I can't be trusted."

"I'm starting to think you did that on purpose so you'd never have to cook," Jon says, but he plugs in the electric griddle anyway. Pancakes are always a good idea, even if they're manipulation pancakes. They might actually be better if they're manipulation pancakes, he should try that on someone sometime. Although the only people he's ever had any success manipulating are Ryan and Tom, and he doesn't really trust either of them with cooking.

"Hand over the blueberries, Ross," Jon says, then thinks better of it. "No, fuck the blueberries. I think we have chocolate chips."

"We do? I would have eaten those if I'd known."

"There's a reason they're hidden."

Jon makes giant stacks for each of them, and it's not until he sits at the table with Ryan he realizes they're out of syrup. "Dammit."

"These are, like, dripping with chocolate, do you really need them sweeter?"

"Maybe," Jon says, and doesn't admit maybe he overdid it with the chocolate chips. By the time he's halfway through his stack, though, Ryan's blueberry-purple lips are smeared with melted chocolate; he looks like an exceptionally sloppy five-year-old. Jon maybe shouldn't be watching Ryan's mouth if that's what he thinks, especially not when Ryan licks off some of the chocolate.

"I like this," Ryan says, spears another bite and puts it in his mouth just to talk around it because, yes, he's five. "Mornings."

 _We should do this every day, every single day,_ Jon doesn't say. "When are you leaving?"

Ryan blinks, swallows heavily. "Didn't we talk about this already? Cat house in my living room, bookshelf space used up, not leaving, et cetera?"

"No, no, like, leaving the apartment. You must have, like, homeowner stuff to do."

"Spencer's paying my bills for me," Ryan says with a shrug. "If 'homeowner stuff' means anything else, I wasn't doing it when I _was _home, so. Uh. Do you want me to leave?"__

"No," Jon says, "just, I was thinking. About stuff."

Ryan nods like he knows what Jon means, doesn't ask him to clarify. "Stuff, yeah."

"Marley really likes your backyard," Jon says.

"It's a pretty sweet yard, when I can convince Spencer to mow."

"You could mow your own lawn," Jon says, then remembers who he's talking to. "I could mow your lawn."

"From Chicago?"

"From right there, I think. We could - Marley really likes it."

"Marley does, yeah," Ryan says, smiling like he gets what Jon actually means. It's Ryan, and it's Jon, so he probably does. It's a good thought, a really good thought.

"My lease isn't up for a couple months."

Ryan shrugs again. "You were gonna stay with me for, like, six months before everything, and you still owe me three of those. Ish."

It's not like Jon actually thought he intended to honor his lease, or that Ryan might not want him there long-term, but the reality of sitting here and realizing there is absolutely no reason not to do this is something else. Which is stupid, because the reasons to do it always outweighed the reasons not to. Jon can't honestly look at a month and a half home without Ryan compared to three months at Ryan's even when that means all his issues are staring him right in the face and ignoring them means a fight.

"You should move in with me," Ryan says, "for Marley."

"For Marley," Jon says. "Of course."

Ryan's smile is big and dopey and chocolate-smeared, and it would just be stupid not to kiss him. And Jon's really working on trying to be less stupid where Ryan's concerned. This particular challenge, at least, is pretty easy to meet.


End file.
